Draft:BboyB

BboyB is the artistic name of Alberto Trevino, an American graffiti artist, b-boy, publisher, and community organizer based in Chicago. According to the Chicago Reader, he was "one of the first people doing hip-hop graffiti in Chicago" in the early 1980s.[1] He is a co-founder of the graffiti crew Artistic Bombing Crew (ABC), founding editor of the hip-hop publication The FlyPaper, co-founder of the Chicago nonprofit Renegades of Funk and its annual Battle 4 the Eagle festival, and a co-creator of the Project Logan and Project Congress permission walls in Logan Square. He was also a lead artist on a 2014 tribute mural to house-music pioneer Frankie Knuckles that drew international media coverage.[2][3][4][5][6][7][1][8][9]

Early life and education

Trevino grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, which he has described as a predominantly Puerto Rican area marked by gang activity in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[4][7][1] He has said he first encountered graffiti in the summer of 1981, at age 13, during a family trip to New York City, and began painting in his Chicago neighborhood shortly after returning home.[10][11][12] He has described his first impression of New York graffiti as "big and colorful".[12]

Trevino attended Lane Tech in the late 1980s, where he was exposed to a wider Chicago hip-hop network through classmates.[1] He later attended Columbia College Chicago, where he studied graphic design and graduated in 1994.[2][1]

Career

Graffiti and Artistic Bombing Crew

According to the Chicago Reader, Trevino was one of the first people doing hip-hop graffiti in Chicago in the early 1980s.[1] In 1983 he co-founded the Angel and Berto Crew with Flash and Angel Perez (Trevino is "Berto"); the crew was later renamed Artistic Bombing Crew (ABC), keeping the same acronym, and grew to include writers including Take2, Trixter, HATE, Non-Stop and Risk.[6][1][13] Trevino and Flash grew up on the same block in Logan Square.[6] ABC later joined the Federation (FEDS), a Chicago graffiti super-crew uniting ABC with Master Piece Crew (MPC) and The Crowd Pleasers (TCP).[13]

The crew hosted graffiti writers' meetings at the Illinois Centennial Monument (known locally as "the Eagle") in Logan Square and went breakdancing at a nearby club called Jenals.[1] ABC was one of the earliest Chicago graffiti crews to paint rooftops along the CTA Blue Line from Logan Square to Division and Ashland, and has been described in Chicago press as "one of the city's oldest graffiti squads".[6][5][14][9] The crew marked its 40th anniversary in 2023.[6]

In a 2024 interview with UP Magazine, Trevino was described as a writer from one of Chicago's first crews, a hip-hop historian, and a certified Olympic breakdancing judge.[15]

Style and recurring motifs

Trevino's graffiti has incorporated political themes and a recurring character he calls "Dead Eyes" — a figure with one normal eye and the other marked with an "x", drawing on Mexican cultural concepts of death as part of the life cycle.[12] He has described the motif as depicting a figure "half in the living world and half in a death world".[12] His 2021 acrylic-on-canvas painting DeadEye Horny Pinky, exhibited at Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago, draws on this series.[16]

Writers Bench and the Eagle

According to Trevino, he and other young graffiti artists and breakers began gathering at the Eagle in the early 1980s because its elevated, highly visible location made it a relatively safe space amid neighborhood gang violence.[7] After the 1983 film Wild Style popularized the term "writers bench" — a New York City-derived name for graffiti-writer meet-ups — the Logan Square group adopted the term to describe their gatherings; the Chicago Reader has reported that the Logan Square Writers Bench is the only such Chicago gathering from the era that has continued to the present.[7]

Frankie Knuckles tribute mural

Following the death of house-music pioneer Frankie Knuckles in March 2014, Trevino was one of the lead artists on a tribute mural painted on the rooftop of X-it European Clothing at 2950 W. Fullerton Avenue in Logan Square, visible from the Blue Line between the California and Logan Square stations.[9][17] The mural, painted in shifts over three days, was a collaboration of members of ABC, CMW (Chicago's Most Wanted) and RK (Reality Klash), and was timed to coincide with the City of Chicago's official Frankie Knuckles tribute concert at Millennium Park in June 2014.[9][18] Trevino has said the artists deliberately rejected the conventions of "rest in peace" memorial walls in favor of bright colors and an image of Knuckles smiling.[19]

The mural was painted over in August 2015 to allow cement-based repairs to the building.[17][20] Trevino, Flash, and DJ Michael Tupak subsequently launched a crowdfunding campaign to recreate the mural at a new site.[21] A second iteration of the mural by other artists was unveiled in 2018, and a separate Frankie Knuckles–themed mural by Max Sansing was installed at a Chicago Public Library branch in 2024.[22][23][8]

Project Logan

Around 2010, Trevino and Flash partnered with the artist collective AnySquared on a mural for the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival; the project evolved into Project Logan, a rotating four-sided graffiti wall near the California Blue Line station in Logan Square.[4][6] The wall ran for 11 years, with panels rotated on a monthly or biweekly basis, and drew artists from across the United States and from countries as distant as Brazil and Singapore.[4][6] Block Club Chicago has described it as a "popular destination for graffiti art" and "treasured public art display".[4][24] In December 2018, AnySquared and ABC presented a group exhibition titled The Art of Project Logan at Cole's Bar in Logan Square, featuring work by Trevino and other core artists.[25]

In late 2020, developer Stanislaw Pluta of Wilmot Properties proposed a 56-unit apartment building at 2934 W. Medill Street that threatened the wall, prompting more than two years of negotiation between the artists, neighbors, and Alderman Daniel La Spata.[4][26][27][28] Trevino was identified throughout the coverage as a co-founder of the wall.[4][26][28][24] An initial proposal in April 2021 to recreate the wall in a smaller form, with required design approval by the developer, was met with frustration by Trevino and Flash.[26] A revised October 2021 proposal added a replacement graffiti wall and raised the share of affordable units from approximately 14 to 20 percent.[27]

By April 2022, Trevino, Flash and Pluta had reached a formal agreement giving the artists permanent control over the east- and north-facing walls of the new development; La Spata announced his support for the project that month.[28] Trevino told Block Club Chicago, "I consider it a win because most developers would probably not even work with that or listen to that".[28] The original Project Logan walls were demolished in early 2023 to make way for construction.[24]

Project Congress

In 2021, Trevino, Flash and other ABC artists launched Project Congress, a series of murals on the long-vacant Congress Theater on Milwaukee Avenue, painted with permission from the real estate firm handling the building's sale and facilitated by Alderman La Spata's office.[29] Flash has described Project Congress as a project organized and run by Trevino.[6] Trevino had previously rented a live/work studio inside the theater in the early 2000s and had organized art events in the building, and started Project Congress in part to maintain a graffiti presence in Logan Square while Project Logan was under threat from the proposed apartment development.[29]

In 2024, Block Club Chicago reported that Trevino curates a wall space in Logan Square called Project Eagle, and described him as a member of ABC who had painted on the area's walls for more than 45 years.[30]

Three Kings Battle

In 2024, Trevino was a co-organizer of the Three Kings Graffiti Battle (3KB), a two-day mural event held in the Back of the Yards neighborhood that brought together 22 graffiti writers from Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. The event was sponsored in part by the Chicago Reader.[15]

Fireman's Park mural restoration

In 2022, Trevino was named to a Project Advisory Panel formed by the 35th Ward Office of Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events to oversee the renovation of the memorial mural at Fireman's Park, a small park in Avondale honoring three Chicago firefighters who died in a 1985 arson fire.[31][32] The $60,000 restoration was funded through ward infrastructure funds.[31] Trevino served on the panel as one of three local artists, alongside Lynn Basa and Gretchen Hasse, with the panel also including representatives of the Chicago Fire Department, neighborhood block clubs, and area chambers of commerce.[31] The panel selected Chicago muralist Damon Lamar Reed to design and install the restored mural, which was installed in May 2023 and rededicated that July.[31]

Publishing

The FlyPaper

While studying graphic design at Columbia College Chicago in 1991, Trevino co-founded a hip-hop newspaper, originally titled The Rap Sheet, with Raymond O'Neal and Michael Shane.[33][11][7][1] After a cease-and-desist letter from a Los Angeles-based publication of the same name, the founders renamed it The FlyPaper.[1] The newspaper had no fixed schedule, budget, or offices; Trevino has said a friend who worked the night shift at a Wicker Park Copy Max gave him after-hours access to the shop's computers to lay out issues.[1]

The FlyPaper began as a double-sided sheet and grew quickly before going on hiatus in 1995, when Trevino's co-founders left Chicago.[33][11][1] Trevino revived the publication in 2001 as its sole editor and continued it as a monthly until 2011.[33][11] The paper was distributed at Chicago hip-hop events, including nights at the venue Lower Links hosted by DJ Jesse De La Peña.[33]

The FlyPaper was among a handful of Chicago hip-hop publications to emerge in the 1990s, alongside Chicago Rocks, Elevated and Caught in the Middle.[1] It published work by William Upski Wimsatt before he founded Elevated and wrote his 1994 essay collection Bomb the Suburbs, and gave hip-hop journalist Kevin Beacham his first byline in 1993.[1]

Café Magazine

From October 2008 through at least August 2010, Trevino served in a creative role at Café Magazine, a Chicago-based Latino lifestyle and culture magazine, publishing the periodical's digital editions under his own imprint.[33][34] The magazine covered topics including Latino arts and entertainment, immigration, the environment, and Chicago Latino communities.[34]

Renegades of Funk and Battle 4 the Eagle

Trevino and dancer Raymond "Breaker Ray" Rivera began hosting larger Logan Square hip-hop events at indoor venues and at the Eagle in the 1990s.[7] In 2004, Rivera — then working as a truck driver — sourced a large eagle figurine from a truck stop that Trevino painted white to create the first Battle for the Eagle trophy, awarded that year to Brickheadz crew member HexStar.[7][35] The event became an annual summer tradition in Logan Square.[7]

In 2010, the gathering received its first city permit, formalizing the event with the City of Chicago.[7] Trevino founded the nonprofit Renegades of Funk (ROF) as a 501(c)(3) in 2015, initially so that graffiti writers could receive payment from the city for work along The 606 trail; ROF has since evolved into a broader hip-hop preservation and education organization that hosts the annual Battle 4 the Eagle and other community events.[7][33][36]

Battle 4 the Eagle is held annually in August at the Illinois Centennial Monument and features competitions in breakdancing, DJing, MCing, and graffiti.[7][35][37] The Chicago Reader has described it as the largest annual hip-hop festival in Chicago, and the Chicago Tribune has called it the city's largest annual free hip-hop event.[7][35]

Trevino has also been involved with several other hip-hop organizations, including a community chapter of Hip Hop Congress, KRS-One's Temple of Hip Hop, and a Universal Zulu Nation charter granted through Pop Master Fabel of the Rock Steady Crew, and served on a Red Bull advisory committee that brought the Red Bull BC One competition to Chicago.[33][13]

Hip-hop preservation and Permanent Record

Trevino has worked as a hip-hop archivist and historian. In October 2014, he and Flash gave a public talk on the history of Chicago graffiti art at the Hairpin Arts Center in Logan Square as part of an AnySquared residency program.[38] In 2013, Trevino and Flash created the exhibition Permanent Record: Chicago Hip Hop Kulture, first held as a pop-up show in Logan Square. An expanded version opened at the Hairpin Arts Center during Chicago Artist Month in October 2015, and the exhibition returned in 2017 as part of the Silver Room's Winter Block Party in Hyde Park.[39][14][33] The exhibition included panel discussions, workshops, mural tours and live cyphers covering the four elements of hip-hop.[39][14]

In 2021, Trevino and Flash launched the Graffiti & Gears bike tour, a guided tour of Logan Square and nearby graffiti walls that was profiled by Chicago magazine and Block Club Chicago.[3][5]

Trevino is credited as an associate producer on Midway: The Story of Chicago Hip-Hop, a feature documentary directed by Ryan Brockmeier and produced by Two Seven Eight Media; the Chicago Reader has reported that he contributed research to the project.[11][1]

Visual art and other work

Trevino's studio work has been exhibited and sold at Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago, which presented his 2021 acrylic-on-canvas painting DeadEye Horny Pinky from his Dead Eyes series.[16][12] His murals in Logan Square are catalogued by the public-art platform MASA.[40]

In June 2015, Trevino and artist Shala created a collaborative live artwork at "Above the Rails", the inaugural gala for The 606 hosted by The Trust for Public Land. The piece, signed by attendees, sold for $8,000 in the event's live auction.[41]

Outside of his hip-hop and visual-art work, Trevino has had a career as a designer, photographer and art director, with positions at advertising agencies including Young & Rubicam, Leo Burnett and Jack Morton Worldwide, and design and journalism roles at Tribune Publishing's tabloid RedEye — where his work included photography for the paper's "Chicago INK" feature on local tattoo culture in September 2006 — as well as at Hoy.[33][42]

In 2023, Trevino and fellow Columbia alum and graffiti artist Stephanie Garland (Stef Skills) led a graffiti workshop at Columbia College Chicago's Hip Hop Club as part of programming marking the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Galil, Leor (October 30, 2019). "Fighting for Chicago's place in hip-hop history". Chicago Reader. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  2. ^ a b c "Integrating Hip Hop Into the Student Experience". Columbia College Chicago. October 6, 2023. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  3. ^ a b "The Graffiti Bike Tour's Top Stops". Chicago. September 2021. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Bloom, Mina (January 29, 2021). "Logan Square Apartments Could Wipe Out Beloved Graffiti Wall: 'They Came For The Culture ... Now That They're Here, They Don't Want It'". Block Club Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  5. ^ a b c Bloom, Mina (July 1, 2021). "Logan Square Artists Launching 'Graffiti & Gears' Tour To Showcase — And Reclaim — The Local Graffiti Art Scene". Block Club Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Galil, Leor (December 26, 2023). "Flash ABC: The Graffiti Champion". Chicago Reader. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Hsiao, Irene (August 9, 2023). "Battle 4 the Eagle returns to Logan Square". Chicago Reader. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  8. ^ a b "Frankie Knuckles Mural Finds New Home in Chicago". Billboard. August 7, 2018. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  9. ^ a b c d Holliday, Darryl (June 5, 2014). "Frankie Knuckles Mural Goes Up in Prime Logan Spot For Graffiti Artists". DNAinfo. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  10. ^ Lorenz, Hannah (December 15, 2015). "BboyB: Chicago's Original Graffiti Artist Looks at Where the Art Form Has Been and Where it's Going". Chicago Street Artists. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  11. ^ a b c d e "Filmmakers". Midway Documentary. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  12. ^ a b c d e Reyes, Uriel (November 29, 2023). "Graffiti art moves beyond hip-hop origins as artists embrace their own styles, culture". Columbia Chronicle. Columbia College Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  13. ^ a b c Trevino, Alberto (2021). "BboyB Bio" (PDF) (Press biography). Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  14. ^ a b c "Knowledge Drop: An October Hip-Hop Renaissance". Newcity Music. September 28, 2015. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  15. ^ a b Misfitx, Nicole (August 15, 2024). "3 Kings – Style Writing Battle". UP Magazine. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  16. ^ a b "BboyB DeadEye Horny Pinky, 2021". Epiphany Center for the Arts. March 4, 2022. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  17. ^ a b Freeman, Justin (August 6, 2015). "RIP, Frankie Knuckles Memorial Mural Removed In Logan Square". Chicagoist. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  18. ^ "Logan Square Remembers Frankie Knuckles". LoganSquarist. June 24, 2014. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  19. ^ Bowean, Lolly (August 7, 2015). "Frankie Knuckles Mural may have a new home in Rogers Park". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  20. ^ "Frankie Knuckles tribute mural removed". FACT. August 1, 2015. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  21. ^ "Frankie Knuckles Mural To Be Re-Created". 6AM. August 7, 2015. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  22. ^ "Frankie Knuckles tribute mural rises again in Chicago". Resident Advisor. August 16, 2018. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  23. ^ "New Frankie Knuckles & Chicago House Music themed mural unveiled in Uptown". 5 Magazine. September 28, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  24. ^ a b c "Project Logan Graffiti Wall Torn Down To Make Way For Apartments". Block Club Chicago. March 3, 2023. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  25. ^ "The Art of Project Logan Exhibit! Opening". AnySquared Arts. December 2, 2018. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  26. ^ a b c Bloom, Mina (April 27, 2021). "Future Of Project Logan Still Uncertain With Graffiti Wall Founders, Developer At Odds". Block Club Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  27. ^ a b "Updated Logan Square Development Proposal Calls For Slightly More Affordable Housing And Graffiti Wall". Block Club Chicago. October 13, 2021. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  28. ^ a b c d Bloom, Mina (April 19, 2022). "Project Logan Apartment Plan Gets Alderman's Support, Over The Objection Of Some Neighbors". Block Club Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  29. ^ a b Bloom, Mina (June 2, 2021). "Graffiti Artists Cover Logan Square's Congress Theater With Colorful Murals Ahead Of Potential Redevelopment". Block Club Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  30. ^ "Vacant Logan Square Lot Could Become Community Plaza As Neighbors, City Plan Next Steps". Block Club Chicago. October 23, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  31. ^ a b c d "Fireman's Park Mural Restoration". Office of Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th Ward, Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  32. ^ Bloom, Mina (June 16, 2022). "Avondale Mural Honoring 3 Firefighters Killed In 1985 Arson Will Be Restored". Block Club Chicago. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  33. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Meet BboyB of ABC (Artistic Bombing Crew) in Logan Square". Voyage Chicago. July 19, 2018. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  34. ^ a b Trevino, Alberto (2008–2010). "Café Magazine archive". Café Media via Issuu. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  35. ^ a b c "Hip-hop lovers celebrate the genre's 50th anniversary in Logan Square". Chicago Tribune. August 13, 2023. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  36. ^ "Back In Da Hood". Agitator Gallery. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  37. ^ "Renegades of Funk Chicago". Humboldt Park Magazine. 2023. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  38. ^ "History of Graffiti Art Art Talk". AnySquared Arts. October 24, 2014. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  39. ^ a b "History of Chicago Hip Hop Features Break Dancing, Rap, DJ Workshops". DNAinfo. October 6, 2015. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  40. ^ "BboyB ABC Murals and Street Art". FindMASA. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  41. ^ Jordan, Candace (June 17, 2015). "Above the Rails: A Crazy Cool Party for The 606". Candid Candace. Retrieved May 13, 2026.
  42. ^ RedEye (September 28, 2006). "Body of art". RedEye. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved May 13, 2026. RedEye's alBerto Trevino was out last week taking pictures of Chicago's skin candy.



Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:American graffiti artists Category:American hip-hop musicians Category:Hispanic and Latino American artists Category:Hispanic and Latino American journalists Category:Artists from Chicago Category:Columbia College Chicago alumni

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